Effective beam method for element concentrations

There is a great diversity of research being conducted at synchrotron facilities around the world and a diverse set of beamlines to accommodate this research. Time is a precious commodity at synchrotron facilities; therefore, methods that can maximize the time spent collecting data are of value. At the same time the incident radiation spectrum, necessary for some research, may not be known on a given beamline. A preliminary presentation of a method applicable to X-ray fluorescence spectrocopic analyses that overcomes the lack of information about the incident beam spectrum that addresses both of these concerns is given here. The method is equally applicable for other X-ray sources so long as local conditions are considered. It relies on replacing the polychromatic spectrum in a standard fundamental parameters analysis with a set of effective monochromatic photon beams. A beam is associated with each element and can be described by an analytical function allowing extension to elements not included in the necessary calibration measurement(s).